Last night at the local astronomy club’s event at a local park, we set up three telescopes to offer the public the opportunity to get a closer look at the heavens.
Two of the scopes were highly technical, with ‘Goto’ ability to find selected interesting objects in the sky automatically.
My dinosaur refractor was totally manual, and to make things more interesting, my finder scope had a dead battery! I was back in the days of Galileo!
The skies were not the clearest, partly cloudy, with Saharan dust in the air, and no close planets or Moon above the horizon for easy targets to look at.
To make things even more challenging, we also had the usual light pollution from nearby Miami.
Of the two software driven scopes, one of them was brought by a potential astronaut who was almost totally new to her scope’s software and features. Talk about on the job training!
We all learned a lot about making do with what we had, and put on a Great example for the public of being resourceful and providing a nice show for interested and sometimes hands on parties from six to 89 years old.
Added to this mix, our third scope owner brought, in addition to his expertise, a set-up that he had created with starsense software, a metalwork tent that shielded his scope and the observer from extraneous light, and his excellent scope, in a unique combination that worked extremely well.
Finally, another club member brought a very 21st century ZWO Seestar 50mm smart telescope.
This remarkable device had a combination of optics, photography, and astronomy/photography software that could track and put together (called ‘Stacking’) hundreds of photos of the same deep sky objects and create detailed pictures of very faint objects, even through the light clouds and dusty conditions, and present them immediately on a screen!
Everyone had a great time.
We all learned some new things.
Inspiring a passion for the world we live in was perhaps the most significant feature presented!
A good time was had by all!
Blessings to All,
Daniel
